Category Archives: Personal

Feb 09

Tow trucks and child prodigies

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I’ve mentioned on Facebook and elsewhere that I’m really enjoying my new Kindle, which arrived yesterday, and that I did some reading last night while in Murfreesboro.

What, you might ask, is the first book I’m reading?

Well, there are several books on the device already: the two Jules Verne novels that I managed to finish on my smartphone before the Kindle arrived, the free Bible that I downloaded while trying to figure out which Bible to buy, and The Siege of Washington : The Untold Story of the Twelve Days That Shook the Union, which I discovered on sale through the terrific web site Ereader News Today, which spotlights whatever books Amazon happens to have on sale (or free!). Today, caught up in Dickens bicentennial madness, I downloaded A Christmas Carol, which like the Verne books is a public domain work offered by Amazon for free.

But – other than looking up a couple of Bible passages – the first book I’m actually reading on my Kindle is kind of unexpected: God Drives a Tow Truck, an inspirational book by Vicky Kaseorg. The book is normally $2.99 in the Kindle store, but when I stumbled across it the other day, during my fevered week of Kindle anticipation, it was free. I can’t recall whether I saw it on Ereader News Today or somewhere else.

I’m not usually a “Chicken Soup For The Soul” kind of guy, but the reviews on Amazon were favorable, saying that Kaseorg’s autobiographical stories were frank and funny. It just seemed like it might be something worth reading, especially at the no-risk price of zero. (The Kindle holds 1,400 books, and even if I were ever to delete some of them to free up space, I can always re-download any book I’ve purchased.)

I have to say, it’s an easy and enjoyable read. Yes, it’s upbeat, inspirational, and a little predictable at times, but the stories are well-told, Kaseorg has a sense of humor about herself, and the sentiment seems genuine, not manufactured. The stories cover various periods in the author’s life, many of them taking place when she hadn’t yet come to the Christian faith. Some deal with her love of animals, others with her family life or with people she’s encountered along the way. Kaseorg is also an artist, and each chapter has an illustration; that’s the one drawback of the Kindle’s otherwise-wonderful black-and-white e-ink display.

There are some of the stories that I can probably use in the future as sermon illustrations when I lay speak. (I always attribute stuff like that, by the way. I will never forget the time when a previous pastor of mine used Walter Wangerin’s story “Ragman” from the pulpit without saying where it came from, as if he had made it up. I was furious, “Ragman” being one of my favorite stories.)

Anyway, even though it’s not free anymore it’s still a good buy, an inspirational book that actually is inspirational.

Feb 05

The whole eBible

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I want to put a Bible on my Kindle – I’ve got room for 1,500 books, after all – but I seem to have a dilemma, and it’s a surprising one, given the popularity of the Kindle in the past year or two.

The Bible translations I’d use most often – the New Revised Standard Version, which is used in a lot of official United Methodist literature, or the most recent update of the New International Version – are available for Kindle, but according to the reviews they don’t have e-reader-friendly navigation. There are some other Kindle Bibles that do have good navigation, making it easy to look up a chapter and verse, but they don’t come in any of the translations I like. There are also some specialty NIV Bibles that cost more than I’m looking to spend right now or that are organized in special ways, including the Passages NIV e-Bible that has the readings broken up so that you can follow along with the Daily Audio Bible. As a DAB listener, I may get the Passages Bible eventually, but it’s not what I’m looking for right now.

I have ordered a Holman Christian Standard Bible for free; I’ve heard them use that translation on DAB from time to time, although I’m not too familiar with it otherwise. But I really want HarperCollins or Zondervan to get on the stick and create a great, reasonably-priced NRSV or NIV e-edition.
Jan 31

Credit where credit is due

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I’d been having a serious problem with my DSL for several weeks. In the evening hours – and pretty much only in the evening hours – the DSL would drop frequently, and then reconnect itself 30 seconds later. It was really frustrating, especially when I would try to download or upload something, and it was getting worse and worse as the days went on.

I’d looked at various online forums and message boards, and they gave me reason to worry. I thought AT&T would insist, rightly or wrongly, that the problem was interference in my wiring – and I had just gotten through dropping the inside wiring maintenance plan as part of some cost-saving changes to my phone service a month or two ago.

But I figured I needed to get something resolved with the DSL before installing a wireless router, and the router is now on the way (in fact, if Amazon is to be believed, it’s now at the Shelbyville post office). I came home over lunch today, and decided to call AT&T, even though the problem doesn’t normally manifest itself at that time of day.

My first call was an exercise in frustration – I got shunted into the automated help system, and when the questions I answered indicated that my Internet was functioning at that moment, the system told me, in effect, “Good! Problem solved,” and promptly hung up on me.

I called back and this time made sure I got through to a live person.

Well, I have to say that she was helpful and did not treat me like an idiot. She did say it might have been better if I’d called during the evening, when the problem was manifesting itself, but she didn’t use that as an excuse. She put me on hold to talk to the technicians, and after an interval she told me that the techs were going to give me a “new profile,” whatever that means, which they hoped would stabilize my connection. If evening came and the problem returned, I was to call back and they would figure something else out.

Well, whatever the new profile is, it appears to be working. The dropouts usually start long before now, and as far as I can tell my service has not dropped once.

AT&T takes some grief sometimes for its customer service, but in this case, and several others in the past, I’ve gotten courteous and effective service. Now, I’m waiting for the router – and then, once I get my wi-fi up and running, I’ll be ready for a Kindle.

Jan 29

Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back.

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Well, it was a long night Saturday, but a good one. I got to the Blue Ribbon Circle at 5 p.m., and didn’t leave until after 1 a.m. I spent most of the evening working the door at the Relay For Life Dance and Live Auction, and was quite busy; we had a lot of walk-in traffic, more than I was expecting, and I also had some will-call tickets to worry about.

Rayz’n Cain, a band which includes one of my sister’s friends and classmates from school, sounded fantastic – and their performance was all the more remarkable because one of the band members lost a family member … to cancer … earlier that day.

So we had a great crowd, and they were also a supportive crowd when it came time for the auction.

The preliminary figures are that the event raised more than $10,000 – yes, you read that right – for the life-saving work of the American Cancer Society. But that’s not all! Earlier in the day, one of our individual Relay teams, the Snazzy Nazzys team (First Church of the Nazarene), held its “Crown For A Cure” pageant, raising more than $4,000. So it’s possible that in total, we raised more than $15,000 in a day.

There’s still time to put together a team for the actual Relay, which will take place June 1-2 at Bedford County Agriculture and Education Center. Or you can contribute to someone who’s participating.

Jan 10

The slow-motion cold

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All day Friday, and Saturday morning, I was sure I was coming down with a cold. I felt wrung-out and had a scratchy throat. About midday Saturday, I e-mailed Mountain T.O.P. to cancel my RSVP for the annual holiday gathering at Cumberland Pines, to which I’d been looking forward.

But then, by the time people were gathering at Pines, I was feeling better. I figured maybe it had just been allergies. I got up early Sunday morning and helped cook men’s club breakfast at church, and felt fine Sunday, if maybe a little tired. I still felt OK during the day on Monday. But then, last night, I got a stuffy nose — the kind that’s stuffy and swollen even when it’s not runny.

My colds usually follow a predictable pattern: a little tickle at the back of the throat, then a day of feeling miserable and wrung-out but sounding OK, then a few days of sneezing and coughing, during which I sound horrible but actually feel better than I did on the first day of the cold. This is all followed by a few days of being croupy in the chest. This cold isn’t following that pattern at all. It’s a weird slow-motion cold. My nose is a little bit runny, and I’ve sneezed once while writing this, but it still doesn’t feel like a regular cold.

Jan 06

Special delivery

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Samsung-Focus-S-and-Samsung-Focus-Flash-I ordered a new phone on Thursday. My last good phone broke over the summer, and I’ve been using a cheapo, older-model unlocked phone since that time. I’m now to the point where I could re-up with AT&T and get a new phone. I thought about shopping around for a new company, or switching to a pre-paid phone. But I’m grandfathered in on a good calling plan with my current provider, so switching (or using a third-party vendor, which won’t let you carry over your old plan and treats you like a new customer) would have cost me $10 or even $20 more for the “phone” part of the smartphone, cancelling out any savings or other advantages on the data side of the equation. There are some good pre-paid plans, but I wanted a smartphone.

I subscribed to the daily-deals Twitter feed offered by my provider. There was a terrific deal last month on refurbished Galaxy S II phones, and I really should have jumped on it. But I was preoccupied with Christmas shopping, and by the time I made up my mind they were out of the refurbs. I had hoped they would have a big after-Christmas sale (and they’ll probably start one next week, now that I’ve ordered something else).

Anyway, I finally decided this week to get a Samsung Focus Flash – a Windows Phone 7.5 model with a 5 megapixel autofocus camera and an LED flash. I ordered it on Thursday. The web site offered free two-day priority shipping, so I assumed the phone would arrive on Monday. I had it shipped to the office, so that someone would be sure to sign for it. The web site would not let you use a PO Box for a shipping address, which usually means they’re using FedEx or UPS. I entered the newspaper’s street address.

When the phone shipped late yesterday, however, the tracking number turned out to be USPS. The phone was being shipped from Memphis, and the tracking number information last night showed an estimated delivery date of Jan. 6 – today. Could that be right? Could I really get my phone today, and have all weekend to play with it and get it set up to suit me? I got my hopes up. Last night, I set up the Zune software on my PC. As a side note, I really like the Zune desktop software. It does a much better job managing podcasts than the last two programs I’d used. It doesn’t recognize some of my older, copy-protected legal music downloads, however, even though I have the proper authorizations for them in Windows Media.

But I digress. Anyway, I hoped that my phone would arrive today. But it did not arrive with the morning mail. As of tonight, the Postal Service has no further information since 10:22 last night, when it was in Memphis. It may still be in Memphis, or it may have been placed into the newspaper’s post office box right after the front office staff picked up the mail this morning. All I know is that I don’t have it.

If, by some chance, I get an update tonight saying that the phone was delivered today, I may try to go to the post office tomorrow, show them the tracking printout, and see if I can sign for the package. I doubt they’d let me, however, unless it was one of the people who knows me.

It’s too bad – I may be coming down with a cold, and setting up a new tech gadget would have been an excellent distraction.

Dec 20

Party hearty

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Well, we had pickup rehearsal* tonight. One of our key cast members was absent – he was trying out for “Camelot” in Woodbury – so I got to read his parts. I particularly loved being the announcer, and Mr. Potter.

The restaurant is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but the staff was having their holiday party tonight at one end of the restaurant while we were rehearsing on the other end.

We discussed some revisions to the script and then began our rehearsal. We made it through the first act and had started on the second when we took a little break to celebrate the birthday of Keith Wortham, one of our castmates. We had a giant birthday cookie. We were just finishing up when the restaurant staff told us they had plenty of extra food – cheese balls, dips, crackers and the like – and would we like to help ourselves?

We joked about having eaten dessert first, but most of us didn’t turn down the free nosh.

While we were enjoying ourselves, the restaurant staff took the chance to take the dance floor (most of the tables in front of our stage had been moved out of the way; they’ll be put back in time for the next performance on Friday) and do a routine.

Anyway, by the time they’d wrapped up, we were worrying about moving our sound effects table into position. By 9:15 or so, it was pretty clear we weren’t going to get back to practice. But that’s OK. I think we’ll do just fine.

 

*Pickup rehearsal is a rehearsal in between weekend performances, to keep yourself sharp, work on any problems that revealed themselves during the first few performances, or what have you. Sometimes, pickup rehearsals aren’t taken very seriously, and cast members take the chance to do their parts in funny voices, walk onto stage in funny masks or costumes, or otherwise try to break up their castmates. We didn’t intend to make this that kind of pickup rehearsal, however; our intent really was to work on the play, since we’d had an abbreviated rehearsal schedule prior to our first performance.

Dec 18

Special needs

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This is the latest in a series of posts in which I talk about Mountain T.O.P.’s Adults In Ministry program. Starting with this one, I’ll include the links to the previous posts at the bottom instead of trying to put them all here.

Kaleidoscope is an arts program for special needs children from Grundy County. Grundy County has six primary schools sharing one art teacher and one music teacher. “Special needs” covers a lot of ground; it can mean anything from severe disabilities to ADD, ADHD or just a bad home situation. Most of the Kaleidoscope kids are referred by the school system, although (as with Day Camp, Summer Plus and Quest) it’s not uncommon for Mountain T.O.P. to be lining up a home repair project, notice that there are kids at the house, and ask if they’re interested in participating. I think the age range for the program is 6-11, although that’s off the top of my head and may be off. I remember 12 being the dividing line between Kaleidoscope and Summer Plus but I’m not 100 percent sure whether it’s the top age for one or the bottom age for the other.

Volunteers lead arts workshops for the kids, or simply help out as caregivers in workshops being led by someone else. Workshops can be things like drawing, arts and crafts, music, drama, and so on. As with the other AIM ministries, the volunteer base for any given camp event tends to be a mix of age and experience levels. We’ve had professional teachers and child care workers, as well as clueless amateurs like, well, Yours Truly.

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Nov 16

Why AIM? Why you?

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I’ve posted or Facebooked several times lately about Mountain T.O.P. Adults in Ministry. Last summer, I went to two separate weeks of AIM (just to be clear, I’m only suggesting you do one). It was the first time in several years I’d been to the summer AIM ministry. I’d been a couple of times to fall AIM weekends, and those are great as well, but to me there’s something special about the kind of community that forms during a week-long event. Plus I have a passion for two programs that are only offered during summer AIM events. I had forgotten just how much I missed the program, and it meant a lot to me to be there.

I’d really like to take some more folks with me in the summer of 2012. I’m already trying to lay some groundwork at church. I already go to church with two Mountain T.O.P. regulars, Andy and Edna Lee Borders; Andy is currently on the Mountain T.O.P. board, just as I used to be. But we’ve never been able to make that connection to convince others to take the plunge. I’d like to change that this year.

But if the reader will indulge me, I’d like to widen my net a little bit, and invite you – yes, you – to join me next summer.

George Bass, the founder of Mountain T.O.P., used to say that trying to describe Mountain T.O.P. to someone who’s never been is like trying to explain what a banana tastes like to someone who’s never eaten one.

But I’m a writer, and I like explaining things. So I’m going to endeavor to explain what this program does for me and why I think you would enjoy it as well. But first, here’s the brand new AIM video, which will take  you about four minutes and change to watch:

 

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Nov 10

Dramatis personae

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I’m going to be in a play over the holidays. I can tell you what; I just can’t tell you where.

OK, to bring the story up to this point: I’ve enjoyed occasional participation in community theater, and last spring, I played the lead in “Cash On Delivery,” at the Fly Arts Center in Shelbyville. It was the first time I’d ever had a solo lead part, and a huge one at that, but I had a great time, with terrific castmates and a great director.

This fall, some of those same folks formed a new theater group, the South Of Broadway Players, not so much to compete with the existing group at the Fly as to offer a more flexible and democratic alternative. A few people are already participating in both groups, depending on what they’re interested in trying out for and their personal schedules. I did not try out for the group’s first play, “Here’s Killing You, Kid!”, because the timing wasn’t right. But I was excited about the new group. I attended one of the organizational meetings.

“Here’s Killing You, Kid!” was presented as a dinner theater at the Duck River Restaurant in Shelbyville, with one final performance at a restaurant in Normandy. The Duck River Restaurant was, I am told, delighted with the production, and it did good business. The SOBs (and, yes, we’ve embraced that acronym) hoped that the Duck River Restaurant could host several such performances throughout the year, and then the group might also do a more traditionally-staged production at some point, perhaps using a school theater over the summer or what have you.

The next SOB production will be “WSOB Presents: It’s A Wonderful Life.” This is one of two similar adaptations of the beloved holiday movie in the form of an old-time radio show. Instead of using sets and costumes, a small group of players performs the play on a stage set up to look like a radio studio. Each cast member does numerous characters, and there’s a sound effects man over to the side producing sound effects, with occasional help from other cast members. Little or no memorization is required, because everyone is reading from scripts, just as radio actors did. Part of the fun is seeing the same actors doing different voices, sometimes even having conversations with themselves.

We had auditions last weekend at the Duck River Restaurant. I enjoyed reading the parts and looked forward to the play. Production dates had been set and announced, with performances to take place right before Christmas and during the dead week between Christmas and New Year’s.

Then, a day or two later, the restaurant announced it would go out of business after one last music event this coming weekend. So now, the SOBs have the rights to the play, and a cast, but nowhere to perform it. Our director and producer are scrambling to find a suitable and available space.

Anyway, I got formal notice today that I’d been picked for the cast. I don’t know yet which characters I’ll be doing.

I’ll let you know as soon as performance details have been nailed down.